A group of seventh- and eighth-graders at Margaret Brent Elementary/Middle School wrote a play called “The Day Baltimore Ran out of Chicken.”

“It grew out of a simple writing exercise,” Patrice Hutton, who ran a writing workshop funded by the Open Society Institute, wrote on the OSI website. “Each student received a note card with an item written on it, and they were to imagine that Baltimore had run out of that item. Baltimore without tires? Sidewalks? Sugar? Churches? Bus drivers? How about chicken? They read their stories aloud, and I challenged them to take it up a notch, thinking catastrophically. … In the end, they decided that a fictional Sheila Dixon steals all the chicken.”

Terrell Kellam, 14, who will be a freshman at City College in the fall, came up with the idea of making the former mayor the heavy. He also got to deliver the best line in the play, which I saw performed Wednesday in the school gym.

“First she steals the gift cards,” said Kellam’s character, Tom the newscaster. “Now she steals the chickens.”